Local Legend

Courtesy of Chinook Observer

11/29/2006

Naselle basketball players practice on the floor of the Lyle Patterson Gym. The facility is named after the local legend who coached the boys team for 32 years.Lyle Patterson still influencing Naselle Comets basketball

NASELLE - A banner two-thirds the length of the basketball court at Naselle High School honors Lyle Patterson, the legendary coach the gymnasium is named after. It says, "Thirty-two years, 623 wins, 31 winning seasons, 13 league championships, 15 district championships, 18 places at state."What the banner does not say about Coach Patterson is the lasting influence he has had on the young people of the Naselle-Grays River Valley he worked with for more than three decades.Both varsity basketball teams are coached by Patterson protégés, with Brian Macy playing in the 1980s and Bobby Torppa in the 1970s. Assistant boys Coach Scott Smith got his start as JV coach with Patterson in the 1980s, girls' assistant Greg Nelson played for Lyle in the 1980s and volunteer assistant Tim Wirkkala played for him in the 1990s.Macy and Torppa both run many of the same zone offenses that Lyle taught them. "I changed the names of some of the offenses, but they are the same basic patterns," Macy says with a chuckle. Torppa still chirps many of the same offensive play names when instructing his girls today, and probably half the fans in attendance know them by heart from their playing days as well. Macy sticks with the identical man-to-man full-court pressure defense that Lyle preached and he and Wirkkala, Smith, Torppa and Nelson still run many of the core drills that Patterson came to Naselle with from Michigan in the 1960s.There are at least a dozen coaches working in school districts around the state who either played for Coach Patterson or who assisted him. There are countless other men who help in their communities with youth basketball and other sports programs. The best thing is those men are teaching their charges more than just basketball because Coach Patterson taught them much more than only sports, as well.A banner covering the gymnasium several times over couldn't chronicle all the positive things Lyle and wife Elaine Patterson have done for their boys over the years. The Pattersons now reside in Longview and still watch several Comets games each season.